Bad Teeth In the Wild West

We know the famous story of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral — the notorious gunslingers Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, a lone tumbleweed rolling across the deserted street, eerie music in the background …

But did you know that Wyatt Earp had bad teeth?

And that Doc Holliday was his dentist?

Local dentist Dara Rogers does. In fact, she came up with a treatment plan appropriate to the 19th century that Holliday could use to fix Earp’s problems as part of a year-long project as a consultant to Pulitzer Prize nominated author Mary Doria Russell.

Russell’s latest book Doc is about Dr. John Henry Holliday, aka Doc Holliday.

The two first became acquainted when Roger’s book club read Russell’s novel The Sparrow.

And “I loved it,” says Rogers. So she emailed the author to tell her how much she enjoyed the book.

Russell says of the initial correspondence: “I get a lot of email, but sometimes the writer's style is distinctive and memorable -- Dara's emails were very precise and scientific, which made her remarks and questions really interesting to me.”

She adds that Roger’s expertise came in handy in a number of ways. “She was the one who told me that until recently, gold foil fillings were considered the most difficult of dental procedures … And she put me onto The Dental Cosmos, the professional journal of 19th century dentistry, and something John Henry Holliday would have read.”

For her part, Rogers says it was “lots of work … a couple of passages went back and forth for a long time.” Rogers is “still not completely happy with some of them” because Rogers objected that a working dentist would be concerned with some of the more esoteric aspects of the practice that Russell portrays as Holliday’s focus.

Russell says of the dental profession, “It was central to his life, central to character development, and central to the story. By all accounts, Dr. John Henry Holliday was an excellent dentist, and he was devoted to his profession.”

She adds: “We forget today that people used to live with awful dental pain, and they sometimes died in misery for lack of a dentist's care. Dentistry in the late 1800s was far more sophisticated and scientifically respectable than medicine, which was a haven for quacks and frauds.”

Rogers says that Russell asked her to read the full manuscript as well to point out any parts that would “make a dentist stop reading.”

She says of the process that the endless back and forth “made me realize I don’t have the patience to write a book.”

 Rogers recommends Russell’s work. “She tells really good stories … I love her character development.”

Russell says of her main character, “We just accept that Doc Holliday was a gambler, but he was deeply ashamed of being reduced to that extremity.”

Doc came out this May.

Part ot the proceeds of Doc will go to Smile Train, the organization that provides free dental work to children in need around the world.

And Rogers, the pretty half of the dental team of Rogers and Rogers, is staying put at 25 Railroad Ave, where she has practiced dentistry with her husband, C Bradford, for the last 18 years.